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Games Entertainment

Cheaters Under The Microscope 163

Posted by Zonk from the give-a-hoot-don't-cheat dept.
1up.com has a piece up examining the reasons and rationale behind the online gaming cheater. From personal pride to pure cynicism, the realm of the cheater has many ways in. From the article: "Using grenades and jumping on friends' shoulders can help you get ridiculously high and reach far-off boundaries in Halo 2. Players like Joe32 call it creative thinking. Victims of sniper fire that seems to come from another world call it cheating."
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Cheaters Under The Microscope

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  • Cheating is NEVER fair (Score:4, Insightful)

    by KDR_11k ( 778916 ) on Wednesday June 22, 2005 @02:50PM (#12883165)
    To lose consistently to people who got better than you by playing six to eight hours a day while you're at school or worksome people cheat just to even the playing field.

    Cry me a river. Perhaps you should try playing with people who are your skill level instead of wanting to be the Rambo of the higher leagues.
    • This is why more games should have a player rating system. America's Army does well with its Honor model. You can filter servers by min and max honor, so it's easy to drill down to the newbie servers.
      • Halo 2 does this as well - still, it doesn't stop the cheaters who use this tactic to reach a higher ranking than they deserve.

        The market solution is that some otherwise great maps that have this problem will no longer be used. Hopefully, Bungie will step in and make a fix.

    • Part of the problem is that it's very difficult to join a game that has similarly skilled opponents. Even Halo 2 doesn't get it right: your rank in one type of game is independent of other types of games. So for instance, you can play Big Team Battle for months and get to level 15, and then one day decide to try Team Skirmish. Well, you'd be ranked level 1 in those games because you've never played them before. Then you get matched with real newbies, and of course you blow them all away.

      Frankly, I wis

      • Re:Cheating is NEVER fair (Score:4, Interesting)

        by kniLnamiJ-neB ( 754894 ) on Wednesday June 22, 2005 @03:15PM (#12883485)
        Agreed. They should have an overall "Skill Level" that goes up with ALL experience. Then have a modifier for each game type.

        Player: Bob
        Level: 10
        Deathmatch: 3
        CTF: 0
        TDM: 7

        If all values started at 0, Bob gained 7 levels in TDMs and 3 in deathmatches. The server would have to show both the game type number and the overall, so you can see that if Bob is in a TDM, he spends most of his time playing TDM (7 out of his total 10). Drat, guess I can't take that idea to the patent office now...
        • The RTS Battle for Middle Earth does something like this, for online matching. It assigns you a rank #, based on how well you're doing for the given match type (1v1, 2v2, etc.)

          Usually pairs me up with someone pretty equal to my skill, so it makes for a good match, not a one sided destruction.
        • The idea is good, I will admit, but from my experience with online players and MMOs (which have exactly that kind of levels)... well, let's put it like this: Some people will then see that level number as representing their e-penis in inches. So you start getting:

          1. people cheating to get that number up at all cost.

          Partially also because:

          2. people with a huge ego, treating you like you're an insect if your number is 1 point less than theirs.

          Don't get me wrong, I'm willing to give some respect to a more
      • This is true... for a while. The thing is, if you're dominating so much, the ranking tends to increase far more rapidly. It took me far, far fewer games to get to rank 10 in team skirmish than in big team skirmish, which I mostly started playing Halo 2 with.

        In that sense, the rankings are working as good as can be expected.

        Where it falls apart, though, is when you want to play with your variably ranked (and skilled) friends. In that case, the games can get a bit mismatched (especially if you're ranked by
  • Cheating happens for many reasons. Because you can, it's "against the rules", getting enjoyment out of pissing other people off, and just plain wanting to win. It's a bit easier to do these things in online games since you can be anonymous (as opposed to real world games).
    • Some of the reasons they give are ridiculous. Can't you do your "testing the limits of the game and finding new bugs" offline and offline only? If your enemy does not cheat you can assume he'd prefer to play the game the way it's meant to be played. Pissing people off is even worse. These people deserve to lose their account and get their hardware permanently banned.

      • Can't you do your "testing the limits of the game and finding new bugs" offline and offline only?

        Not everybody can afford to buy 10 Xbox consoles and 10 TVs (or worse yet, 10 PCs) to do such testing on. Besides, some of these bugs are psychological, and players who know they're being observed will act differently.

        These people deserve to lose their account and get their hardware permanently banned.

        Banned from what? The Internet? Now you're dealing with dangerous Treacherous Computing territory.

      • Sorta makes me wonder (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Moraelin ( 679338 ) on Thursday June 23, 2005 @11:11AM (#12889568) Journal
        A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, Bartle divided MUD players into: socializers, explorers, achievers and "killers". The twist being that "killers" doesn't mean PvP players, but people who actively seek to harrass, humiliate, annoy, and even hopefully drive people out of the game altother. (Others call that type of player a "griefer".)

        Basically long after "online gaming" ceased to mean only MUDs, we're basically stuck with a signifficant portion of any online game's potential player base being "killers". People who _will_ go to ridiculous extremes to get you pissed off.

        E.g., people have been known to blow real money on a new Ultima Online account just to scam some newbie. Reading some of the UO griefer sites was downright surrealistic. People were actually _planning_ to eventually get an account banned (i.e., also the money it cost) just to play it as disruptively as possible and cause as much grief as possible until they get banned.

        So personally I wonder if there aren't better way to deterr griefers than even banning hardware ids. Like, if it's possible to make a game that isn't attractive to griefers in the first place. My theory, supported by my limited observation in all these years of online play, is that games can (and _do_) differ vastly in how attractive they are to each of the categories.

        E.g., at one end of the spectrum, you have Counter-Strike. Now the game does have its merits, and there are some very good players playing it, yes. On the other hand, it also attracted arguably the highest percentage of annoying players. Why? Beats me. There is _something_ about its gameplay that suits the "killer" type very very well. (Maybe the fact that you can actually prevent another player from playing the game for a while?)

        E.g., on the other hand of the spectrum you have games like the first incarnation of PSO, where it was pretty much impossible to harm a player in _any_ way. You can't kill them, you can't lead a train of monsters to them, you can't block their retreat, you can't do anything to them. So killers would come, whine a bit, spam the lobbies with pornographic "smilies" (e.g., I've seen some running around with a very graphic and animated representation of male masturbation), but pretty soon get bored and leave. So the average PSO player was a very nice and friendly person.

        Other games, like the non-PK facet of UO, were also remarkably "killer"-free. Partially via not having much thing to do to other players, partially via Origin's policing the realm: the idiots who got creative and "tested the limits of the games and found new bugs" to harm newbies, found themselves banned to the PK facet.

        And various other games fall at various points in between.

        So basically that's what I'd like to see more game designers devoting thought to: how to make a game that isn't attractive to idiots to start with. Probably won't get past a publisher, though.

  • Just by jumping on someone else's shoulders... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Zangief ( 461457 ) on Wednesday June 22, 2005 @02:58PM (#12883262) Homepage Journal
    you call them cheaters?

    I call that bad map design.
    • [i]you call them frivolous lawsuits? I call that bad law.[/i] I fixed that for you. Just because you can doesn't justify it being right.

      • Re:Just by jumping on someone else's shoulders... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by tolan-b ( 230077 ) on Wednesday June 22, 2005 @03:15PM (#12883491)
        The GP is right, why shouldn't you be allowed to use a team mate shoulders to get a bunk-up?

        Here's a favourite quote for me:

        Other gamers give themselves an edge by using a mouse and/or keyboard with today's USB-friendly consoles, which increases accuracy and cuts response time--it can be an insurmountable advantage. But, as one anonymous cheater explains, "It's not illegal--it's just using the best equipment available. Anyone can do it."

        Not *gasp!* a keyboard and mouse!

        • Re:Just by jumping on someone else's shoulders... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by rekenner ( 849871 ) on Wednesday June 22, 2005 @04:37PM (#12884411) Homepage
          Totally agreed.
          That was my first thought on reading the summary... It is creative thinking. Hell, don't you get damaged if you grenade yourself up somewhere? You're just that much easier to kill after that. Or if you have to use a teammate to get somewhere... That's time both of you could be off helping your team kill, depending on how long it takes to get somewhere.

          If the player can't be damaged once they reach their destination, I can understand how that could piss other players off... But, that's still just bad level design.
      • I hate "cheaters" as much as the next person. But I would have to agree with the grandparent's post, that level design should account for such things. I think it's using terrain/available objects to your advantage if you can climb on a comrade's shoulder to access a higher place, for example.

        If we want to argue that games are becoming more and more like real life, if I'm in a combat situation, I'd do whatever it took to get myself the upper hand. Unlike real life, however, there aren't any "laws" (to use

        • Re:Just by jumping on someone else's shoulders... (Score:5, Interesting)

          by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Wednesday June 22, 2005 @04:35PM (#12884388) Homepage Journal
          "I hate "cheaters" as much as the next person. But I would have to agree with the grandparent's post, that level design should account for such things."

          Personally, I don't call it cheating if both sides can do it. It may make the game un-fun, but it's hardly cheating.

          I doubt that distinguishment means much, tho. Usually cries of cheating happen when somebody's losing. At that point, they're not terribly discriminant of whether or not the other guy was actually being unfair.

          Just once I'd like to hear "Hey man, it's really not fun for me when you do that. Could you please try another tactic?" I'd be more than happy to comply for the sake of making the game fun, but instead everybody's a 'gay faggot llama'.

          • Re:Just by jumping on someone else's shoulders... (Score:4, Interesting)

            by porcupine8 ( 816071 ) on Wednesday June 22, 2005 @10:20PM (#12886531) Journal
            Just once I'd like to hear "Hey man, it's really not fun for me when you do that. Could you please try another tactic?"

            Actually, I have heard that. When I figured out how to use some particular move in Soul Calibur over and over again to defeat just about anyone in under 30 seconds. They (my hallmates in my dorm) nearly kicked me out of the tournament.

          • Personally, I don't call it cheating if both sides can do it.

            Both sides can re-arrange chess pieces when their opponent is distracted, but it's still cheating to do so.

            Grenade-jumping abilities can be regarded as "part of the game", but exploiting a bug to snipe from an invulnerable spot is just lame.
    • I can't believe they used that as an example. Anything like that is completely NOT cheating. Grenade jumps, jumping on another player, fancy trick jump, etc - those are all completely valid techniques and anyone who considers them cheating is full of crap.

      Level glitches - like the superjumps on various maps, the old trick of pulling flags/weapons through walls, those are also not really cheating, since anyone can do them. People who abuse them to grief people are not cheating, but still deserve negative feedback.

      Standbying (the modem glitch mentioned), and now the whole problem with hacked files - now that's cheating, and those people need to get their asses banned like NOW.
      • I think as long as the developers leave stuff like this in the game, and don't remove it with patches (eg. stacking of players, trick-jumps, out of bound enemies) it shouldn't be seen as cheating.

        Damn, I remember a long time ago getting very annoyed playing CS, because people would excuse me of cheating.
        The reason ? Good ol' using of the in-game voice-comms, to get your whole CT-team to stack you on the upper ridges on the DE_Aztec map (near the stair-bombspot) : Perfectly legal, as it was never 'clipped'

  • Its not cheating if its in the game. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by HellPhish ( 91069 ) on Wednesday June 22, 2005 @03:00PM (#12883300) Homepage
    My stance on cheating in video games is that its only cheating if you modify the client app or take advantage of something that other players can't take the same advantage of.

    Simply put, if the game allows it, it is part of the gameplay. It may not be the most obvious way to play, nor may it be how the manual TELLS you to play. As far as I'm concerned, anything allowed by the engine is totally fair.

    There is no such thing as an unfair advantage.
    • I completely agree. These few glitches give the game character. The silient bomb plant on dust2 in CS 1.6 is a great example of this. Glitches can encourage teamwork, which is one of the best parts of online gaming for me. When you work with complete strangers and just rout another group because your group of less skilled players worked as a team instead of individually, it makes the game much more enjoyable than having a high kill count. One of the recent games where this worked best is UT 2004 in ons
      • The silent bomb plant is illegal in some leagues, along with other CS glitches. Sure, the other team can do it too, but doing so has a big effect on that team's chance of winning. How is it fun to have the side the glitch is on win every time?
      • What about the undefusable bomb on the updated cobble (since fixed) or practically every map back in 1.3? What about throwing grenades under floating boxes and walls, causing grenades to be silent (making it easy to hear who you hit, and exactly where they are), and causing flashbangs to be much more powerful and impossible to avoid? (Doable in nuke, train, inferno, aztec, cobble, just about any map that has big open areas).

        What about boosting through thin ceillings? (assault, militia, dust2,others..)

        Ther
    • That's like saying that webserver was MEANT to be vulnerable to overflow attacks so you had the right to root it.
    • Like the people that bitch about people being "panzer noobs" in Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory.

      I have always figured that hey, if it's a weapon int he game, use it. If you have an advantage, more power to you.
      • Actually, if you are getting called 'Panzer Noob', it is because you use it in the wrong situation. Panzers should be saved for when they can clear out a choke point or the main objective on offense. Also, it could mean your aim sucks so bad that you can't even hit anybody with it.

        If you get called 'Panzer whore', people just don't like the weapon. Those folks need to get over it.
      • q1 days it was "rocket pussy"
        • The inverse sounds dangerous, but a good way to die. :-D
      • I understand that if the weapon is in the game, it's a valid weapon, but I still hate the panzer.

        The problem with it is that, even in the hands of a noob, it's undefeatable. As an experienced player, I feel that if I see them first, I should be able to avoid their shot. If it was 20% slower or a bit weaker it would be fine. As it is, as soon as you hear it, you're dead.

        Also the noobs who use them indoors killing several teammates tend to irk me.

        • The problem with it is that, even in the hands of a noob, it's undefeatable.

          I've received a near-direct hit with a panzer, and survived. Level 4 engineering gives the Flak-jacket ability, which halves explosive damage. Adren self can also help.

          In the hands of a newbie, the panzer isn't as much of a threat compered against an experienced veteren, for the following reasons:
          - Newbies tend to have low accurracy or reaction time.
          - Even on a case where a hit does occurr, the panzer will have a very long

    • There are (fairly obvious) bugs that give unfair advantages and would be cheating. For example, using map bug that allows you to shoot from 'under the world' without being subject to return fire.

    • Re:Its not cheating if its in the game. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Have Blue ( 616 ) on Wednesday June 22, 2005 @04:11PM (#12884115) Homepage
      The problem with that approach is that it turns the game from "who can play the best" to "who can perform the best exploit the fastest", which is a completely different game from the one you may have intended to play when you joined the server.
      • If it's allowed by the game and the level, then how is that not "who can play the best"?

        If you only perform actions allowed by the game itself (no hacking, network tricks, scripting, etc) and you win then...you played the best!
      • I can think of two different scenarios regarding this, a good one and a bad one.

        Firstly, in Doom .99, in a deathmatch we figured out pretty quick that if someone was about to kill you, RUN FOR THE LAVA! Kill yourself and deprive them of the point. This was amended in later versions of the game so that you would be deducted one kill if you killed yourself.

        Second, I don't think the Quake developers anticipated the concept of rocket jumping or bunny hopping. However, these are now integral parts of (almost?)
    • Simply put, if the game allows it, it is part of the gameplay. It may not be the most obvious way to play, nor may it be how the manual TELLS you to play. As far as I'm concerned, anything allowed by the engine is totally fair.

      I remember playing a MUD long ago. Somehow I triggered a bug where my character couldn't take damage. After exploiting this to level up about 15 times, a god finally saw what was going on, erased my character, and banned my netblock.

      I was sort of shocked.

      Anyway, the point is,

      • The game didn't intentionally allow this. To me, that is the key: if the action falls outside the parameters of intended behaviors, then it is cheating. By your own admission, you knew that you were exploiting a bug, so you were cheating.

        If you went to an ATM and it repeatedly dispensed $200 instead of the requested $20, the cheating would be called theft. If I am playing with you on what I believe is an equal basis, you are stealing something from me: my time. I wouldn't have played with you if I had
        • By your own admission, you knew that you were exploiting a bug, so you were cheating.

          I didn't know it was a bug. It may have been. I've seen, and written, programs which exhibit fairly complex and unintentional behaviors that are not obviously bugs. Sometimes customers even come to depend on these bugs, and when you fix them people get ticked. The point is, it's hard to tell.

          If you went to an ATM and it repeatedly dispensed $200 instead of the requested $20, the cheating would be called theft. If I am

          • I didn't know it was a bug.

            That may be true, but I was merely responding to this:

            ...I triggered a bug where my character couldn't take damage. After exploiting this to level up

            Further:

            What I was doing didn't impact any other player

            You know this for a fact? In my experience, dishonesty -- which is what cheating is -- nearly always negatively impacts someone, even if it isn't obvious.

            Anyway, the question is moot, and we are never likely to agree, but thanks for responding, even if we are still at

      • This is a case where the owners of the games decide what is cheating and what isn't. Probably, everyone could have exploited that bug, but in the MUD, you're probably not doing so much playing against other players as against the system. As such, you've gained an advantage that the system likely can't take advantage of (although the MUD I used to play on actually had a bug where MOBs could become invincible...)

        Sounds like the admins on your MUD were intolerant of bug abuse. The problem I have with this
    • Simply put, if the game allows it, it is part of the gameplay. It may not be the most obvious way to play, nor may it be how the manual TELLS you to play... ...nor may it be a sporting and friendly way to play, but fuck all that because I want to be king!

      There's a distinction between fairness and ettiquette. Sure, only violating the prior makes you a cheater, but violating the latter just makes you an asshole.

  • I almost buy... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by faloi ( 738831 ) on Wednesday June 22, 2005 @03:01PM (#12883314)
    The "hey, I'm just exploring new parts of the map that I have to glitch to get into explanation." Except that there's nothing stopping you from setting up your own game to play around with people of a like mind-set WITHOUT running roughshod over some other players.
  • The problem of cheating is one reason that I tend to like consoles a bit better for online gaming than PCs. I know, console games can be hacked too, but usually with a much greater effort required than a PC game. But I wouldn't call using unusual in-game tactics cheating. Knowingly modifying the code in some out-of-game fashion, that's cheating. Exploiting game bugs in an in-game fashion is grey at best, but at least all players would have equal access to said bugs until fixed. If the game masters rule tha
    • Exploiting game bugs in an in-game fashion is grey at best, but at least all players would have equal access to said bugs until fixed.

      That only holds up if everybody is out looking for bugs, or scouring the intraweb for the latest l337 h4xx0rz!. If someone, particularly a new player, wants to log on and play a game for a while they shouldn't need a mindset that causes them to check up on all the grey-area exploits out there. Getting wtfpwn3d because you didn't realize that if you jump on a grenade you c
    • Plus, if you're on a console and you see your opponent cheating, just reach over and yank his control out of the socket. Revenge is sweet.
    • Hah, equal access sure - but how many of those complaining noobs don't care to read the latest forum posting or upcoming patch notes or whatever?! Most.

      As for in-game cheats of things that "anyone" can do -- for the games I play, there are still many, and those that use them are the assholes that make the games no fun for people. You wonder why a lot of console gamers don't want to go online yet.. it's because of fuckheahds that have their 'fun' by abusing the latest bug or glitch or whatever to beat you s

  • Find a good server (Score:3, Informative)

    by Grand ( 152636 ) on Wednesday June 22, 2005 @03:03PM (#12883339)
    and stay there. For the games that I play, I find a couple of servers that are almost always full and have PLENTY of admins. So when you play, there is a good chance of an admin to be on. Once you find a server you like, stick it in your favorites and play there often.

    • Re:Find a good server (Score:4, Insightful)

      by oni ( 41625 ) on Wednesday June 22, 2005 @03:08PM (#12883407) Homepage
      bingo. And the sence of community is great too. Knowing most or all of the people you're playing with is different from an anonymous game in the same way that online is different from single player. It's a whole other level of fun.

      Tonight is my quake 3 threewave night (I know it's old but it's still fun). There are five guys that I've known for years and we all meet up once a week. If one of us is having a good night, he'll get congratulations and kudos from everyone else, as opposed to bitching and ranting on an anonymous server. If one of us is having a bad night, we'll all be good sports about it. A lot of times I'll even let someone kill me so they wont feel bad. As opposed to being called a loser and a noob on an anonymous server.

      Playing with your friends rocks. It's the only way to go.
    • Yes, ther eis nothing more frustrating than being on a server that *WAS* going great until some asshole joined and screwed it up for everyone. But alas, no admin in sight.

    • Re:Find a good server (Score:4, Insightful)

      by The boojum ( 70419 ) on Wednesday June 22, 2005 @05:42PM (#12884990)
      Yep, that's the way my UT2k4 iCTF clan handles it. We've found most of the anti-cheat mods out there tend to make the game lag horribly and don't even catch many cheaters anyway. So we've taken to just having a large group of admins around to keep an eye on things and hand out bans.

      Social problem, social solution...

      (Of course, why people still try to cheat when they see players with our tag around is still a mystery to me!)
    • Plenty of admins is the key, indeed. I've been playing a server that hands out level 1 status to anyone who asks, and escalates privileges over time if you're not an idiot. Problem solved.

      For the Halo 2 model (where there is no 'server'), the game should just randomly give admin status to one player. If the player's a cheat, well that sucks, but more than likely he's not.

  • Game Features can reduce Cheating (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Tenzen01 ( 155389 ) on Wednesday June 22, 2005 @03:12PM (#12883449)
    Cheating because you don't have time to compete with the people who play 6-8 hours a day is a LAME excuse.

    Some people have natural skill and are gonna own you no matter if you are one who plays 6-8 hours a day and they only play it once a week.

    I find that in-Game features can reduce cheating in addition to providing better gameplay.

    The article mentions Halo 2 on Xbox Live, which as everyone knows uses a Ranking system to match teams up. Thus you are much less likely to be playing in a game with people 100 times better than you. I find that playing in games where the teams are evenly matched can be fun and thus reduces the "need" for people to cheat. Games that somehow balance the teams are much more fun to play in. Yeah we all like being on those teams where you completely own the other team... but you are also going to end up on the other side of that sometimes, where you are the team getting destroyed. And that's no fun.

    Another Game Feature I think helps reduce cheating is in Call of Duty. There is a feature that can be enabled in multi-player games called the 'kill-cam'. It shows you the last 7 seconds or so before you died from the point of view of the guy that killed you. I find that watching the kill-cam from time to time reduces the perception that it might have been an 'unfair kill'. "He couldn't have possible seen me!" "I shot him a thousand times and he didn't die!". etc.

    In addition the kill-cam helps reduce camping (since you now know where they were when they killed you) and it might even give you some tips on how to play better.

    • Another Game Feature I think helps reduce cheating is in Call of Duty. There is a feature that can be enabled in multi-player games called the 'kill-cam'. It shows you the last 7 seconds or so before you died from the point of view of the guy that killed you. I find that watching the kill-cam from time to time reduces the perception that it might have been an 'unfair kill'. "He couldn't have possible seen me!" "I shot him a thousand times and he didn't die!". etc.

      In addition the kill-cam helps reduce campi
      • I play CoD too... it's an option on the server menu... and most of the games I've played in do have it enabled. It's pretty cool to have around so you don't start flaming someone who just got a good/lucky/whatever shot. Negative: It makes it easy to cheat in other ways (if you watch a player for a little bit on the killcam, you can sometimes make a good guess at where to find him next... or in team matches, you can tell your buddies where he was). But the benefits typically outweigh the negatives.
        • or in team matches, you can tell your buddies where he was

          In CoD dead teammates can't talk to live teammates. Sure you could use team speak or something else outside the game, but then you're already cheating.

          Anyway, the killcam *does* give away sniping spots (or what you were doing a little bit before you killed somebody) so you'll know where to look next round. But I think that's still an advantage because you can't sit in the same spot every time. You have to adapt, and having everybody constantl
    • You can't prevent cheating, couple the kill cam with a phone to your friend and suddenly your friend knows where that sniper is.

      This is really REALLY sucky.

  • Bah. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by bk_veggie ( 807894 )
    I used to spend a ridiculous amount of time playing Urban Terror [urbanterror.net], and frankly, some of the 'cheating' he mentions actually kept the game interesting.

    I understand nobody wants to play against wallhackers and aimbots, but what is wrong with using avatar pyramids to gain access to higher levels? If the devs didn't want people to get there, why the heck did they leave it as a solid surface?

    Good sentiment, bad execution.
    • > If the devs didn't want people to get there, why the heck did they leave it as a solid surface?

      Or for that matter, why'd they leave avatars as solid surfaces? Try jumping onto a friend's shoulders at a full run. Chances are you're going to knock them down.

  • Thats not cheating. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Darune ( 716587 )
    This guy isn't talking about cheating, he's talking about exploiting holes in the engine. Thats not cheating, thats taking advantage of the world.

    If you, or anyone with enough practice, can do it, then it's not cheating. If you have to modify the client, or the datastream (in a netowork game) then thats cheating. Outside influence = cheating, finding logic holes = exploring.

    Sounds to me like he just can't do that grenade jump exploit, and is crying about it ;p

    Personally I love looking for glitches in gam
    • If you, or anyone with enough practice, can do it, then it's not cheating. If you have to modify the client, or the datastream (in a netowork game) then thats cheating.

      I don't follow. Yes, anybody can learn to rocket jump off their friend's shoulders. But it's just as easy for anybody to modify their game client. What you've said doesn't help whatsoever in determining which of these actions is right or wrong.

  • I was never fond of the cheaters. Before stuff like PunkBuster, some of the codes for games would work in Multiplayer mode as well as single player... and there would be idiots who would use them.

    We used to tell noob's about a "Super-Secret Cheat Code that everybody uses" in Delta Force 2... look straight down, and press 9-ctrl. Eventually, curiosity would get them, and you'd hear a grenade go off and see a message that joe_noob fragged himself (9 = grenade, ctrl = fire). They'd either take it good-na
    • Haha, that reminds me of my days in multi-player Battletech (MPBT, a staple back when AOL was THE destination for online gaming). My brother and I commanded a lance (team of four) for our House (clan/guild/what have you) and would start every battle by saying in the general chat "Remember everyone, hit escape twice to power up!". We stopped doing it after the guild leader said he was tired of having the entire enemy team eject at once.
      • And that reminds me of one of my favourite bash quotes. [bash.org]


        [reo4k] just type /quit whoever, and it'll quit them from irc
        * luckyb1tch has quit IRC (r`heaven)
        * r3devl has quit IRC (r`heaven)
        * sasopi has quit IRC (r`heaven)
        * phhhfft has quit IRC (r`heaven)
        * blackersnake has quit IRC (r`heaven)
        [ibaN`reo4k[ex]] that's gotta hurt
        [r`heaven] :(
  • If a game provides a snipper rifle and hiding spots to use the sniper rifle effectively, why does everyone still call me a cheating camper? It's not my fault that you're using your head armor to cover your ass.
    • I would consider myself an experienced FPS player, and never camp, but see it as a totally legit strategy, especially for new players. A well balanced game/map will make it difficult to run over, get the chosen weapon, and find a suitable spot without being fragged. People complain about campers because they haven't learnt to defend against them. If you learn to look behind you constantly, use the stereo sound to place footsteps, and regularly clean out camping spots, they give up.
  • Did it seem odd to anybody else that they talked about these cheaters as though they were robbing convenience stores or running drug rings out of their basements? Like cheating in Halo 2 is the new drive by shooting. The whole thing seems a little over the top.

    I know some people value their game rankings, but please. They're not taking anything from anybody and they're not causing harm beyond the tang of frustration (although, believe me, I know how frustrating even the illusion of cheat can be). They

  • Article should differentiate (Score:5, Informative)

    by th0mas.sixbit.org ( 780570 ) on Wednesday June 22, 2005 @04:31PM (#12884344)
    Between glitchers and cheaters a bit better, because, quite simply, what they wrote isn't really what's going on at all.

    First off: there a huge number of "glitches" in halo 2 maps that are there on purpose. Things like jumping onto a person's shoulders in order to make it somewhere higher is partially what makes it so fun. Bungie tweaked these levels unbelieveably well, and there is a lot of skill in perfecting seemingly impossible jumps.

    The article is quite outdated. The new fad in halo 2 cheating is rather astounding. The new map pack that was released in the spring downloads maps from xbox live to the user's hard drive. People realized that while the maps were signed to prevent people from copying maps from xbox to xbox (this weakly protecting bungie's IP) they weren't really signed to prevent modification. So if you do something akin to deleting the signatures from the map the game defaults to letting you play the maps on xbox live. The result? People can use standard halo 2 modding tools to mod their maps, add autoaim, jump higher, etc.. .

    Which brings me to the second, much larger and impossible to fix, issue with xbox live. You'd think that xbox live is a dedicated service providing servers for playing halo 2, right? Wrong. In every XBL game, a user is chosen to be host. That person is the server, and as such has much more control over the game. For one, it's essentially "their game or the highway". This is what allows people's modded maps to have an effect on the game, in many circumstances.

    The modem-delay people do in games on purpose, as mentioned in the article (known as "standbying") is a direct result of xbox live offloading the hosting job to a client. Now the person who is host can filter the packets from an opponent, the game keeps running while that person is lagging out, and the host can run around lag-free killing the people who's packets are being routed to /dev/null.

    The cheaters have added a new level of complexity: they get a routing program that can route by MAC, and selectively filter out specific players during matches (as opposed to the all-or-nothing pull-the-plug-on-the-modem approach.)

    As long as the hosting is not done by microsoft themselves there is no real way to fix this issue. The maps issue is stupid; they aren't checking their own content sig's properly, but at least that's not an architecture issue and will probably be fixed relatively soon.

    In all honesty the free portals such as xboxconnect and xlink kai are better, if you can handle not having an elitist rank next to your name...

  • Mixed bag (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Sylver Dragon ( 445237 ) on Wednesday June 22, 2005 @05:51PM (#12885067) Journal
    The article seems to lump a lot of things into cheating, I'm not sure I agree with all of them.
    Modifying client code, stream, etc. Obvious cheating. And the offeners should be banned for life.
    Using a USB keyboard and mouse on a console. Not sure this is really cheating. Obviuosly the console is designed to utilize these pieces of hardware, and a controller sucks for FPS games. Though, some way to check and filter for this would be good. Still, I don't think that this is going to be cheating.
    Gernade jumps, rocket jumps, stacking. These are not really cheating by themselves. If you are using it to get to a hard to access area on the map, fine. If you are using it to get outside the game world, then there is a problem. I don't play Halo so I'm not sure what the article is saying exactly, but using a friend and a gernade to get on top of a tall building hardly seems like cheating. If it's putting the player outside the world and allowing them to fire without receiveing fire, then ya, it's cheating. But if it's in the game world, it should be fair game.

  • What an asshole (Score:5, Insightful)

    by alan_dershowitz ( 586542 ) on Wednesday June 22, 2005 @05:57PM (#12885102)
    This asshole thinks using a keyboard and a mouse is cheating.

    Other gamers give themselves an edge by using a mouse and/or keyboard with today's USB-friendly consoles, which increases accuracy and cuts response time--it can be an insurmountable advantage. But, as one anonymous cheater explains, "It's not illegal--it's just using the best equipment available. Anyone can do it."

    People who have been playing games since Wolfenstein 3D know what the best FPS controller is, and it's the keyboard and the mouse. If no console manufacturer chose to pay attention to what PC gamers have known for over 10 F-ing years now, tough shit.

    As I've read in a review of Quake for the Dreamcast, which online could pit computer players against console players: "Playing with a controller versus people playing with a keyboard and mouse is a soul-destroying experience."

    It's not my fault people want to use a shitty controller.

    • People who have been playing games since Wolfenstein 3D know what the best FPS controller is, and it's the keyboard and the mouse.

      Actually back then the best controller was a gravis gamepad. It wasn't until FPSes started having an "aim" component that the mouse became superior.

  • Playing to win (Score:4, Insightful)

    by rpumarega ( 894314 ) on Wednesday June 22, 2005 @07:31PM (#12885721)
    There is an article over at sirlin.net that discusses this. http://www.sirlin.net/Features/feature_PlayToWinPa rt1.htm [sirlin.net] Here's a small snippet. "You're not going to see a classic scrub throw his opponent 5 times in a row. But why not? What if doing so is strategically the sequence of moves that optimize his chances of winning? Here we've encountered our first clash: the scrub is only willing to play to win within his own made-up mental set of rules. These rules can be staggeringly arbitrary. If you beat a scrub by throwing projectile attacks at him, keeping your distance and preventing him from getting near you...that's cheap. If you throw him repeatedly, that's cheap, too. We've covered that one. If you sit in block for 50 seconds doing no moves, that's cheap. Nearly anything you do that ends up making you win is a prime candidate for being called cheap." -- If you rocket jump of your friends shoulders.. that's cheap!
  • Rape. . . this whole cheating thing is just like rape. . . its a consent thing, if everyone playing agrees that you may use map exploits then it is fine, the same with cheats. If everyone is using their own cheat, and everyone agrees to play by these rules then it is fine.
    So basically, when you don't have consent, you get to go to "jail" and get "butt raped" by 6' 450lbs Bubba.
  • Cheating is a minor irritant and its been around as long as multiplayer games have been in one form or another. What I find more of a problem is imbalance in games because it denatures the whole experience. For example, in BF:Vietnam the helicopter has a massive advantage. Hard to shoot down with the relatively limited anti-air units on the maps, its a veritable death machine exposing the pilot to relatively little risk of being hit. All the top ranked players exclusively helicopter about the maps. I got to
  • "Other gamers give themselves an edge by using a mouse and/or keyboard with today's USB-friendly consoles"

    Can anyone tell me if you can actually use a keyboard and mouse combo with any of the existing (read available in stores) consoles in games? AFAIK you can't even though they have USB support...

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